Mandela Close: the road that residents don't want to leave

Residents of Mandela Close in North West London reveal what it means to live
in a place named after the hero of the anti-apartheid struggle

By Tom Rowley and Daniel Johnson, video by Philip Allen

2:30PM GMT 14 Dec 2013

The street in North West London looked much like any other. Daisies grew on a large patch of communal grass surrounded by redbrick council houses smattered with satellite dishes. In fact, the only sign that the street was in any way remarkable was daubed in white paint on the wheelie bin outside No 12: “Mandela Close”.

Inside the house, however, it was a different story. Julius Afuye and his family are incredibly proud of their street’s homage to the late statesman whom Afuye calls “the Jesus Christ of Africa”.

The 68-year-old Nigerian moved with his wife and two children to the Brent estate ten years ago. “The council told me the house would be at Stonebridge Park but they didn’t tell me what address,” he said. “They said ‘come to the station and meet a lady who will show you round’. I thought this area was so dangerous back then and I didn’t want to move here. But when we turned the corner and I saw the sign ‘Mandela Close’ I told her: ‘If this place has no roof, I will still take it.’

“He was a man who fought for freedom and then showed everyone what he had fought for by telling his country to come together. His message means a lot to the whole world and even more to me as an African. I will never move.”

Afuye hopes that South Africa will rename a city in honour of its former president. In the meantime, however, his name will live on in 22 street names across Britain, according to the Geographer’s A-Z Map Company. From Mandela Way in Southampton to Mandela Avenue in Falkirk via a Place in Watford and a Court in Reading, more streets are named after him than homegrown former politicians including Margaret Thatcher (who has a court in Dartford) and James Callaghan (a drive in Fareham). Several halls and flats also bear his name, as well as a park in Leeds and Huddersfield’s speakers’ corner.

Further along Mandela Close, 53-year-old Dave Kola says the street’s name does not reflect its atmosphere. “I wish the name brought us together but sadly it doesn’t always work like that,” he said. “I would like us all to stop and think for one or two minutes about what he did. He did so much for black people.”

The council named the street when the estate was built in 1983 after Mandela gave them permission from his jail on Robben Island. Four years later, Paul Boateng again linked the borough with South Africa when he was elected as the constituency’s MP. In his acceptance speech, he reminded the town hall throng about the black township where Nelson Mandela lived before he was imprisoned, declaring: “Today Brent South, tomorrow Soweto”.

Boateng, who would become Britain’s first black Cabinet minister and is now a member of the House of Lords, believes such gestures as renaming roads contributed to the wider campaign against apartheid. “It is important to remember that in the Eighties he wasn’t universally the subject of adoration that he subsequently became,” he said. “When the Greater London Council put up a bust to honour Nelson Mandela on the South Bank, it was vandalised and his daughter had death threats.

“The reality then was that the South Africans had banned the use of his name. They weren’t allowed to mention it or print it – he was a banned person. So, many people in Britain felt it was important to keep the flame alive. South Africans always found it important that their struggle was not forgotten. Anyone who lives on a Mandela Close is pleased to live there.”

Some of these geographical monuments are grander than others, however. A branch of the wholesaler Costco is the only property on Gateshead’s Mandela Way, cutting through industrial wasteland near the town’s shopping centre. A bus station is planned, too, but it has yet to be built.

Many of the streets date back to the Eighties, when the anti-apartheid movement reached its height and left-wing councils were keen to emphasise their support. John Sullivan, who created Only Fools and Horses, even named Del Boy’s block of council flats Nelson Mandela House in a nod to the trend.

Several students’ unions elected Mandela their honorary president, and councils gave him the freedom of their borough. In 1986, he was granted the freedom of Islwyn, the Welsh constituency of Neil Kinnock, the then Labour leader. Paul Taylor, who owns the Rock Country Inn in the seat, said that residents remain proud of the decision. “We granted him that freedom when he was still incarcerated in South Africa, so it was a very forward-thinking and outspoken move,” he said. “You can only admire the man’s stature.”

Council officials in Birmingham named their new primary school Nelson Mandela when it opened in 1987. Today, pupils walk past his framed photograph on their way to the school hall, dedicated by Mandela “to ‘my’ school in Birmingham”. One of the school’s pupils, 11-year-old Yonif Farah, said they discuss Mandela’s legacy in assemblies each week. “Having our school named after him is an honour he deserves,” he said. “He was a great man who lived a life full of achievement and influenced many people to believe in civil rights and equality. I will always remember him.”

Ranjeet Bhjachu, the librarian, can remember Mandela’s visit to the school in 1993. “The word got out that Nelson Mandela was coming to Birmingham so lots of people took time off work to be here to see him,” she said. “Some of them were parents but lots of people who weren’t even locals came to be there. He stopped to shake everybody’s hand. He said to everyone: ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ Of course, it was our pleasure to meet him.”

Read the story of Mandela'stempestuous life, filled with hardship and struggle and crowned by a singular triumph, in The Telegraph's seven-part obituary.